This invention relates to an arrangement for manual disengagement of a device interface board from a personal tester.
Copending U.S. patent application Ser. Nos. 10/234,496 and 10/234,497, the entire disclosure of each of which is hereby incorporated by reference herein for all purposes, disclose a semiconductor integrated circuit tester that is designed for personal use by a technician or engineer in a laboratory rather than for production use in a manufacturing facility. In one implementation, the tester includes pin electronics implemented on a main circuit board mounted in a generally parallepipedal housing. The main circuit board has a tester interface that is exposed at one main face of the housing and includes several tester interface pin headers. A device interface board or load board, which serves as a spatial transformer between the tester interface pin headers and a device under test (DUT) socket for receiving a DUT, has receptacles that engage the tester interface pin headers.
An implementation of the personal tester described above is sold by Credence Systems Corporation under the designation PERSONAL KALOS.
The personal tester may be positioned on or adjacent to the user's workbench, and when the user wishes to test a device of a particular type, he selects the appropriate load board, engages the receptacles of the load board with the tester interface pin headers of the tester, and installs the DUT in the DUT socket of the load board. When the user wishes to test a device of a different type, it will generally be necessary for him to remove the current load board and engage the load board for the new type of device with the tester interface. Typically, the user will position the tester with the pin headers upward and it is then easy and convenient to engage the receptacles of the load board with the pin headers using manual force to push the load board down relative to the tester. In order to disengage the device interface board from the pin headers, the user may pull the load board upwards relative to the pin headers. There is danger in these circumstances that the user will inadvertently tilt the load board, which may result in the pins of the load board receptacles or the pins of the tester interface pin headers being bent or otherwise damaged. There is also a possibility that flexing of the load board will damage the load board itself.